At Euston Station
by DancingGrimm
Summary: John discovers the perils of rescuing elderly ladies at train stations.


Euston Station

A few days away at an army mate's stag party had done John a world of good, and he wasn't even hung-over! The party had taken place at an outward bound centre, where they'd spent a long weekend rock climbing and para-gliding and all sorts of other stuff. It had been great. As the train pulled into Euston Station, delivering him back into the centre of the Metropolis, John felt like he could take on the world.

He really hoped Sherlock hadn't set fire to the flat. _Please let him have behaved himself._

There weren't too many people on the train, so he didn't get stuck in the usual havoc when he got out of the carriage. There was a bit of a crowd on the ramp that led up from the platform to the concourse though, a luggage trailer having lost some of it's load by the looks of things, and John stopped and leaned against the railing to wait until it cleared.

Of course, some idiots decided to try and push their way through the crowd, and a smartly dressed elderly lady who had come off the same train as John got swept along by them, and then she was shoved hard to one side and stumbling over her own suitcase and-

John leapt up and reached out for her without even thinking about it, and managed to get his arms under her before she fell against the railing. She let out a cry of alarm or pain, and one of the young city-types who had pushed her glanced back over his shoulder on hearing it.

"Watch it!" John snapped at him angrily, but the man just shrugged and began elbowing his way through the crowd again. If he hadn't had a patient to deal with, John might have gone after him and given him what for, but the elderly lady was having difficulty getting her feet back under her and John's medical training pushed anything else out of his mind.

"Are you in any pain?" he asked, helping her to turn so she could lean back against the railing. "Did you hit your head at all?"

"No, no I didn't. I think my ankle twisted as I fell though. Oh dear. Are you a first aid person?"

"I'm a doctor," John replied and knelt down. She was wearing sensible flat shoes and she lifted her injured foot to allow him to pull the shoe off it and have a look. She was wearing tights or pop socks, but they were thin enough that John could get a good look at the ankle. It was swelling slightly and turning a touch red, but it didn't look too bad. He got her to press her foot down against his hand, then to rest it on the floor. He pressed various spots on her foot and asked if and where it hurt, and was finally satisfied that it was just a twist, nothing serious.

"You just need to rest it for a little while," he told her, getting back to his feet. A little gaggle of people seemed to have been watching him, but they quickly dispersed when it became clear nothing gory was forthcoming. "You should sit down for a bit and see if you can put your foot up for a while before going on. Do you need to walk anywhere today?"

She shook her head and patted her neatly pinned-up hair in what seemed like a self-comforting gesture. "No, my sister is coming to meet me from here in her car. She won't be here for another twenty minutes or so though."

John nodded. "Well, why don't I walk up to the concourse with you and find you a seat. I'll wait with you, if you'd like."

She smiled warmly at him, and John found himself taking a proper look at her. She was probably in her late sixties or early seventies, and her hair was an almost translucent white, pinned up in a sort of cream horn shape on the back of her head. She wore a neat blue trouser suit and tasteful jewellery, and her suitcase, which John picked up, was rather old but very sturdy and smart, obviously expensive.

"Thank you," she said, offering him an elegant, be-ringed hand to shake. "My name is Camilla."

"John Watson," John said, shaking her hand, then she took his arm and let him walk her slowly the rest of the way up the ramp. The crowd had mostly cleared by now, and the few people that were still hanging around got out of their way without really noticing them. There was a bench composed of a row of armless metal seats, completely unoccupied, only a little way away, and John led her over there and watched conscientiously as she lowered herself into the end seat. He took his bag off and put it under the bench, then slipped off his jacket, folded it into a pad and placed it on one of the seats a couple of feet away from her.

"You'd best put that foot up," he told her, indicating the pad. "It'll help to keep it from getting swollen." She gave him another smile and amenably lifted her injured foot onto the jacket. That was a nice change; it wasn't often that John's patients did what he told them to. "I'll go and get some tea, shall I?" he asked. She thanked him, and John crossed the concourse to one of the little hole in the wall shops. There wasn't much of a queue and he was soon walking back to her with two cups of tea in his hands. She had taken a sheet of paper out and was reading it, but she folded it up and put it back inside her jacket as he approached.

"Thank you so much," she said as he handed her the cup. Her voice was very refined, like a 1950's newsreader. "You're terribly kind John. Or should I call you Doctor Watson?"

"John's fine," John replied, and he settled on the seat at the other end of the row, sitting next to her foot. "How is it feeling?"

"Only a little bit sore now." She took a sip of her tea and grimaced slightly, and John remembered he'd put some sugar packets and a stirrer in his pocket at the counter. He offered them to her and she accepted them graciously, tipping the contents of all three packets into the cup and stirring the brew with vigour.

"What sort of doctor are you, John?" she asked.

"'I'm working as a G.P. at the moment, but until fairly recently I was a trauma specialist. I was in the army."

"Goodness! What a change. Did you decide to settle down?"

If John had a penny for every time somebody asked him that... "No, but I only got back to England from Afghanistan recently, and I'm...I'm taking my time getting back into the swing of things."

"I'm sure that's the best way to go about it," Camilla replied with great assurance. "There are so many different things one must be able to do with a medical qualification. I daresay the world is your oyster, John. Have you considered leaving London? You know, if your dream job should become available?"

That seemed a bit of an odd question, but it was often hard to say what counted as odd with elderly ladies. "I don't think I would, actually. I've got...I'm in a very good situation, I suppose, and I would rather keep that than change jobs." It wasn't really the sort of thing to say to a stranger, that all his career goals had paled into insignificance when Sherlock had come along.

Camille twinkled at him. "A special girl?" she asked, and John almost laughed.

"No, actually. A friend. A very good friend in fact...have you ever just met somebody who is completely different to you, and yet..."

"You formed a bond?" Camilla offered, and John usually hated it when people tried to finish his sentences for him, but she'd phrased it just right.

"Yes," he said, "That's about it. But he isn't the most..._stable_ of men, I suppose, and I feel like I want to stick around. Keep an eye on him."

"You sound very noble. I think you are a very nice man indeed, John."

She sounded so earnest, and so honest, that John felt a blush starting to warm his cheeks. "I'm not, not at all really. I suppose it's a bit selfish actually. Sherlock makes life more interesting for me, you know? He brings me out of myself."

"But surely that's what people _should_ get from those close to them," Camilla said. "They make one another's lives richer and happier. I don't see any selfishness in it. I daresay you bring a lot to his life too."

"Well, I try," John said. His phone buzzed and he excused himself to read the text. Sherlock, wanting to know where he was.

_At Euston. Back soon. _John typed back.

There was silence for a moment while Camilla sipped her tea, and while it wasn't awkward exactly, John felt inclined to say something. "Do you come to London often?"

"Oh no, not really. I prefer life in the countryside. But it's my older son's birthday soon and I wanted a new outfit for the party, so I decided to take the opportunity to get my sister down here and meet up with her." She smiled in a way that suggested mutiny and leaned forward. "Actually," she said in an undertone, "I try to get my visits with my sister over with. Shopping softens the blow. She can be rather a battle axe."

John chuckled. "I know the sort of thing. My big sister drives me mad. I always avoid meeting her at weekends because I know she'll get drunk and turn into a nightmare."

"Do you have any other family John?"

John shook his head. "I've a couple of cousins here and there, but...my family were never very close anyway, so after our parents died, we all just drifted away from each other."

Camilla nodded. "It happens, I suppose. Do you think you're likely to drift away from this friend of yours?"

John glanced at her, surprised at the sudden insistence in her voice, to see that her face was intent, focussed purely on him.

"I...no. No, Sherlock's different," he said, feeling a frown creep onto his face.

"Oh?" Camilla asked, and that one syllable was like a tiny interrogation.

"He's too weird," John told her, the first words that came to his lips. To his surprise, a short, high laugh burst from Camilla's lips. Suddenly the strange tension dissipated, and John became aware that they were having quite a personal conversation in a public place, having known one another for all of five minutes.

"Um..." he said.

Camilla chuckled again, more softly this time. "You mustn't mind me, John," she told him. "I like to know all sorts of things about people, and I've always found that, if one asks a particular question in a particular way, one will get to know so much more in far less time."

He looked along the bench at her smiling face, and a jolt of recognition passed through him. Could she be...

"Mummy?" asked a deep, familiar voice from nearby. John whipped his head around to see Sherlock standing behind him, hands in his coat pockets, staring wide eyed over John's head, at Camilla.

_Mummy!?_

"Oh, hello darling," Camilla said brightly. "How nice to see you!"

"Mummy, what on earth are you doing here?" Sherlock asked, striding around the bench to stand over his mother.

"Mummy?" John asked out loud. Both of them ignored him.

"Your nice friend helped me up when a beastly man knocked me off my feet. I _was_ fortunate to meet him, wasn't I John," she said, and turned to John with a breezy smile that seemed to equal having a loaded gun pointed at him.

"Um," John said.

"Mummy, you've no business being here! You know I don't like it when you turn up at my home!"

"But I'm not at your home, my sweet. I'm at the train station! And _do_ take your hands out of your pockets, Sherlock." Her voice was still light and honeyed, like she were explaining something to a toddler, and Sherlock bristled.

"What are you even doing in London?" he snapped.

"I'm visiting with your Aunt Bedelia," Camilla replied calmly, and Sherlock's shoulders sagged.

"Oh," he muttered. His bottom lip popped out, like a sulky little boy's.

John felt he ought to rejoin the conversation but wasn't entirely sure how to proceed. "Um...what brought you here, Sherlock?"

Sherlock lifted one shoulder disconsolately, eyes still suspiciously eyeing his mother. "I was on the tube anyway. When I got your text I came here."

Camilla smiled between them, then reached out for her son's hand. "You know darling, I was worried when you told me you'd found yourself a boyfriend, but now I've met him I really feel you're in safe hands."

All the skin on John's back went hot. He looked at Sherlock, hoping for clarity, only to see Sherlock's face as pale as he'd ever seen it, his eyes darting from John to his mother and back.

"What?" he asked.

"Mummy, he _isn't_ my boyfriend," Sherlock gritted out.

Giving him an odd look, Camilla reached into her jacket and pulled out the paper she'd been looking at earlier. She unfolded it and, from what John could see of the writing that showed through the paper, revealed a letter. Sherlock turned even paler, and staggered back a couple of steps from the bench.

"'Dear Mummy," Camilla read aloud, glancing up at her son. "I cannot tell you how pleased I am that things with John are going well. To finally have somebody in my life who does not judge me on shallow morals or try to change me to suit their desires, is a wonder. I know you worry about my well-being, but I feel you need worry no more. I don't know that I am capable of happiness, but perhaps John's presence will allow me some measure of contentment.'"

John found himself staring at Sherlock, who had decided to broaden his repertoire by turning pink. Sherlock's eyes settled on him, staring worriedly and silently, for a long moment, before snapping back to glare at his mother.

"How on earth did you interpret _that_ as 'I'm going out with John', Mummy?" he spat. "Your deduction is flawed!"

"Oh? So you're not in love with John?" Camilla asked sweetly.

Pink became red.

"Sherlock-" John began.

"John, you don't have to listen! We'll go home and forget this ever happened, and-"

"Sherlock, it's okay," John said soothingly. Sherlock looked at him with a pleading expression, begging him to mean it. John could only smile at him, and repeat "It's okay."

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Camilla looking alarmingly pleased with herself. The whole family was a bloody piece of work.

"Camilla!" boomed a strident voice from nearby. "Is this your wretched boy? What the _devil_ does he think he's done with his _hair_!?"

"Aunt Bedelia!" Sherlock shrieked.

"Hello, Beddy darling," Camilla said easily. Aunt Bedelia was a large woman with vibrantly dyed red hair and a figure that appeared to owe a great deal to heavy duty corsetry. Her face wore an expression of indignation that looked to have been worn into place over years and years.

"Who is this _person_?!" she demanded, pointing an imperious finger at John.

Without a word, Sherlock grabbed John's arm with one hand, his bag with another, and charged off across the concourse without a backward glance. John considered protesting that it was rude, he really did, especially as his jacket was still on the bench under Camilla's foot and it was a bloody cold day. The bellowing of Aunt Bedelia convinced him otherwise though, and he and Sherlock ran across the concourse and out into Euston Square hand in hand.

They made it to the tube station quickly and in silence and, once safely in the train carriage, which was more or less empty at this time of day, they remained silent.

They were still holding one another's hand though.

::

That evening, a courier arrived with John's jacket. A nice gesture, he thought. As he carried it back up to the flat, he felt something firm in the pocket and pulled out a piece of folded paper. It had Sherlock's name written across one side in a looping, elegant hand.

Sherlock was still sprawled on the sofa, the lazy arse, and John walked into the living room to pass him the note, staying far enough away from the sofa that Sherlock couldn't grab him and yank him back onto it again like he had done twice over the course of the afternoon.

"What's that?" he asked.

"From your mother," John told him, and Sherlock grimaced. "Don't be like that Sherlock. I quite liked her."

"You can see how Mycroft got so..._Mycrofty_," Sherlock muttered as his eyes scanned the text. He stuck his arm out and attempted a grab-and-yank, but John stepped back.

"What does she say?"

Sherlock smiled at him, slow and warm. "She approves," he said.

John pursed his lips. "Is it necessary for her to approve?" he asked, feeling slightly uncomfortable.

"No, but it's one less thing to worry about."

"Very pragmatic," John agreed with a nod.

Later that evening, after they endured a phone call from Mycroft, and John had goaded Sherlock into eating some dinner, John let Sherlock yank him into the bed, and all was well with the world.

::

This was just a little brain fart I had on the train, when I saw a sweet looking chap in fatigues helping a couple of old ladies with their cases. It shows how gone I am on the Sherlock fandom that my first thought was 'Aw, that's the sort of thing our John would do!'

I very much enjoyed describing Camilla's chignon hairstyle as a cream horn shape. I think all hairstyles should have a pastry based nickname; a bun is obvious, but there are Princess Leia's Danish pastries, and a beehive could be a Christmas pudding (for a brunette) or a plain suet pudding (for blondes) or a summer pudding (for anime fangirls with dyed pink hair).

This is what my brain gets up to on long train journeys when I've finished all of my books.


End file.
